Behind the Mask
by DragonMaster65
Summary: Simple prompt-based drabble centered around Rey / Kylo Ren. Semi-romantic interactions. Rey and Kylo fight, a dance between them that is more a conversation than a battle of wills. [Oneshot]


**A/N: Prompt: If you're taking ridiculous reylo prompts: something where she keeps messing with his hair!**

 **This kind of really diverted from the original prompt but eh! Have some lightsaber dueling between our favorite duo.  
(Also additional prompts can be messaged / askbox'd to my Tumblr (feckyeslife))**

 **Thanks to the guest who let me know there was an editing / posting issue!**

It's hot, scorchingly so, between the pair of them. A flurry of motion, limbs tangled before being wrenched apart, the Force a bubbling mess as it roils and crackles between them. It's been weeks since they've run into each other - months since he last removed his helmet in front of her.

She thinks it might be because of the jagged bolt of scar tissue stretching from jaw to brow.

She thinks it might be because his mask is his power.

She thinks it might be because they're always fighting in front of Stormtroopers and rebel soldiers alike.

She doesn't know why she wants him to take it off again.

He grunts, swinging his sputtering, guttering _mess_ of a saber at her once more. Her block comes up, though it's anything but tireless. They've been fighting for what feels like an age, having crisscrossed through the First Order's outpost with equal ferocity.

Now they were dueling, sparring, struggling to gain even just an inch on the other, oblivious to the blaring alarms to evacuate the facility. Rey's chest heaved as she grasped her saber tightly, both hands clasped about the hilt as she struck low. Sparks flew up from under Kylo Ren's feet, the duracrete flooring singeing and burning from the lightsaber's blade.

"You're not going to frighten me." His voice is low, certain from behind his mask and his vocoder. It isn't fair. She can't see his wide brown eyes, his brow furrowed in mirror of her own expressions.

She parries away his returning lurch, keeping her distance from his flaming blade. "Who can frighten a man hiding behind a mask anyways?" Rey spits back.

He bellows something unintelligible, moving into a series of strikes that she can only survive against, not challenge. But his barrage lets up when she flicks his sword arm back - his left arm is always free, always moving to gather the force and push her back, trip her up.

Kylo Ren stands still, his expressionless form unreadable save for his heaving chest as he breathes. "I am _not_ a monster. I do not _hide_!" he practically roars, his anger the only emotion that is capable of being felt through the vocoder's mutilation of his voice.

Snaps click from invisible hands and Kylo Ren unmasks to reveal his glare. Rey feels something pulse around them - the Force reacting to the whirlwind of emotions - and struggles to keep her own intense expression.

Because his curly, boyish locks just make a complete mockery of his visage. Kylo Ren bounces on the balls of his feet before launching himself at her. She re-ignites the blade that she didn't know had turned off and blocked the savage blow that threatened to knock her completely off balance.

Determination fuels the half-trained Jedi as she counters, her saber clasped in her right hand and a well-timed force push tugging at her enemy's ankles.

And that's it. That's all that it takes to bring him crashing down, his shoulder slamming into the scorched floor. His fingers snap open and his blade skitters away, closing with a _whoosh_ that sounds more like the whine that escapes his lips. Rey finds herself pressing her knee into his chest, her own blade held carefully across his face.

His eyes are flickering back and forth from her face to his fallen saber. Sensing his intention, Rey pushes it farther away, under a sparking console, with another push of the force.

"I didn't call you a monster," she finds herself saying. As the words escape and dance between the duo a memory comes bursting to light.

 _She's strapped down, struggling against the metal restraints about her wrists. He's lurking over her, trying to decide when he's going to get it over with and rip the Skywalker map from her mind already._

 _"You still want to kill me." It was all there, even on the fringes of her thoughts. He barely had to skim the surface to pick up on that._

 _"That's what happens when you're being hunted by a monster in a mask." Shock and a burning rush of hurt pride rush over-_

The memory cut out and Rey blinks furiously to regain her senses. It hadn't been her memory - she hadn't been the one leering over her captive.

Kylo still says nothing, struggling to push himself from the hold she has him in. "Don't." And he stills.

"You wouldn't need the mask if you didn't look so young." Again she's suffering from diarrhea of the mouth. Why can't she just kill him or knock him out or do something so that she can just stop talking to him? Stop watching his _too damn expressive eyes_.

Her wrist flicks, the blade dancing over and away from it's threatening position over his pale face. It sizzles as it catches on some bit of debris on the ground. She's still crouching over him, her body weight trapping his chest and her face too close _too close_ to his.

Tanned fingers skim through dark locks, pushing them back into order instead of sticking to a sweaty forehead. She's trying to put him back in order, to take away the chaos that rages across his face, that rolls and cascades through the tenuous connection between them that reared its ugly head after every time they fought.

"You're only a monster when you let the monster take control."

Her blade has stopped buzzing, some unconscious link forged between saber and user, and it's too quiet between almost-Sith and nearly-Jedi. She can feel his chest hitching at each breath, he can count the freckles that still dot her face despite being months out from the desert.

It's hot, scorchingly so, between the pair of them. A lack of motion, limbs tangled and not wrenching apart, the Force a bubbling mess as it roils and crackles between them.

Rey's fingers gently untangle from his hair, their eyes still locked. Finally _finally_ she blinks and the moment is broken. His face contorts into a scowl and she is thrown into the air. Her saber blazes to life and she prepares herself to meet his as it soars through the air to meet his hand.

The alarms blaze once more, a final reminder that the building around them is rigged to blow and that they should kindly find the nearest emergency escape. Kylo steps back first, his blade still in a careful guard position. Rey mirrors the movement, watching warily.

"We're not finished."

"No," she agrees.

Even so, she turns on her heel and darts to the exit closest to her. She knows he will not follow her. His mask flies by her feet as she passes it, springing back to it's master's hands.

She doesn't have to turn around to know that he doesn't put it on eagerly. The disgust ripples through their renewed connection, coloring her own mood as she runs from yet another fight with the Knight of Ren.

He doesn't leave the room until the ceiling rumbles and the floor buckles with the pressure of the building destruction.


End file.
